Lacrimosa
by nemaara
Summary: Despair, despondency, melancholy, abasement. In the doleful throes of life, Raven finds herself wondering why she's still here.


Disclaimer: Teen Titans is not mine.

A word of caution, this story can be violently depressing.

"Speech"

_Thoughts_

* * *

Drip. Drip. One drop of blood falling from her pale skin, then another one, but this cut was not so deep and the bleeding stopped momentarily.

Raven sighed and lay down the knife, looking at herself in the mirror. She looked terrible - enormous dark bags under her eyes, the areas around her irises red with lack of sleep, eyelids half closed, weary lines on her face - she looked like she might have been using drugs, or maybe had drunk too much alcohol, but neither was the case. She was just distraught.

Maybe distraught wasn't the right word for it. Nobody had seen her in two weeks. She hadn't left her room at all during that time period, not to get food, not to see people, not even to help fight whenever a villain showed up. Not that her friends really needed her help anyway.

She looked at herself in the mirror again, seeing the ribs protruding from her body, the gaunt, hollow spaces underneath her cheek bones , how thin she had become overall. It was almost like torturing herself, well, it actually was, but she had no intentions of leaving her room. It was just lucky that she had her own bathroom where she could shower and clean up the blood from her cuts because she really did not want to see anyone else at all.

Actually, that wasn't entirely true either. She might have secretly wanted to see someone who could understand her and support her. Help her deal with her depression. But none of her friends fell under the category of that "someone". They simply couldn't understand her. Whenever she felt desolate, or melancholic, or felt that she was a monster, they always told her to cheer up and not be like that. They'd try to comfort her and encourage her to not be so moody all the time.

Unfortunately, they didn't get that she could not "cheer up". She would always be depressed and demonic because that was simply who she was. The demon half of her was inherently attuned to the darker aspects of personality. Feelings like hatred, anger, melancholy, all of them. It was as natural for her to feel those emotions as it was for her to eat or breathe. An integral part of her person, just like for many humans. love and happiness were an integral part of their lives. And because her friends were all humans or Tameranians (which were pretty similar to humans in that regard), they didn't get why she had to be gloomy like she was.

What she needed was not someone to tell to not be distraught, she needed someone to help her deal with it. Though it would still be there, it would be manageable. She would be able to fight it.

That was not the case. They left her alone for a while thinking that that was what she wanted them to do. But after a few days, she still hadn't shown up at any of their meetings, something strange even for her, so they had stopped by her room one by one, trying to get her to talk to them. They all wanted her to get out of her room and do something with them, maybe go to the mall, or play video games with them, or help cook or fix up the car, or, and this one tempted her the most, just to talk.

Maybe it was because she and Robin had had a bond for a long while, but he often seemed to know what she wanted, even if he didn't understand her very well. That was probably also why he had been visiting her room a lot more than the others - because she had severed that bond, not wanting to deal with her emotions spilling over the barrier she had set up and letting him sense them.

That was another thing. Demons were introverted creatures despite their destructive nature. Not very sociable, not likely to show any signs of their feelings to others (besides anger or hatred), and generally preferring to live alone. Because who could imagine two angry, moody demons being able to live together? That was why she always preferred to be alone. Although she was still half human, so being somewhat social sometimes, like watching movies with her teammates or letting them try to (and fail at, unfortunately, most of the time) comfort her was okay.

But when she looked at herself in the mirror again she saw four red eyes staring back at her and jumped back, eyes wide. The image faded after a second, but it was a painful reminder that she wasn't human and that she didn't belong in this world. Yet she did not belong in the harsh, unforgiving domain of her demon father either. So basically, she was a monster that didn't fit in anywhere. Oh, she could throw up her masks and pretend, to ordinary people, that she had simply dyed her hair or that her skin was just a little weird because of a condition, yeah... that condition being half demon.

In the end, she felt worthless. No, worse than worthless. Like she was a threat to everyone around her, a danger to humanity, useless as a demon, born from both worlds and welcome in neither.

Why?

The answer was simple. Slade had come back from the dead to remind her that she was destined to become the portal for her father to come to this dimension and destroy all mortal life in it. Okay, she was not just a threat, then, but doom itself. The only purpose of her life was to be the conduit for unprecedented destruction. How could she not feel bad about that?

What was even worse was that her friends didn't blame her for anything. She didn't mean to or want to be the portal for Trigon, she didn't want to kill people or be doom or anything to do with him. Which was very true. But it was going to happen as surely as the sun was going to rise, and as surely as it would set over humanity with her father's coming. She had become a superhero in order to try to fight it, maybe redeem herself a little, save people in hopes that maybe, just maybe it would somehow make up for what she was going to do later, but then she realized that she was just a fool. She had saved a precious few people just so that she could kill them later. No, murder them. Because that was what she was, a murderer.

So what? That was what Robin had said to her. He was someone she knew had suffered a lot in the past, seeing his parents die, then seeing the terrible things that went on in Gotham, fighting the Joker with Batman, all that stuff. She had been inside his head, she knew he was pretty dark in his own way, but he was still human and still an optimist. So he had asked her, so what? Even if she was supposed to be the portal, did she always do everything she was supposed to? We can fight, he had said. Even if your father comes, we can fight him. And we can fight Slade, and we will protect you. Never give up hope.

She appreciated his efforts, but it only made her feel worse. What hope had she had to begin with? Not a hopeful person at all, partially due to her demon side, she had never expected anything but the worst to happen. She was going to become the portal, her father was going to come, and that was that. Robin's hope that they could fight Trigon would only hurt them. False hope that would be dashed, expectations unfulfilled. How could a bunch of puny mortals hope to defeat a demon god with unlimited power?

Yet Robin still hoped, and it made Raven feel terrible.

Then there was the matter of his misunderstanding of her. He mistook her lack of hope for giving up, which was not true at all. In fact, he had admitted it too, she was possibly the most persistent person he knew. Never going down until the last breath, never giving in without a fight, always struggling to defy the supposedly horrible thing she was, always striving forward on the path of atonement. Not giving in at all. She simply didn't have any hope or any expectation to begin with. Yet she still fought.

The others didn't quite understand how hard that was. To battle with destiny, still thinking that she was going to destroy everything no matter what she did. To save people who would easily turn on her and condemn her if they found out she was a demon. A fruitless, meaningless existence.

She watched her blood flow down her arm and into the sink, mingling with the running water, diluting it until it was pale and anemic. The bleeding did not stop but she did not bother bandaging the cut, preferring to just watch the blood trickle from her veins.

A wave of dizziness came over her and she staggered, barely managing to stay standing by catching herself on the edge of the sink. Everything spun around her in whirling circles of various colors, white, black, silver, then shades of red, orange, fire...

Suddenly she saw flames burst up all around her and a huge, shadowy figure rise up from a fissure in the ground, four sanguine eyes glaring down at her.

_No,_ she seemed to breath out. _This can't be happening. Not now. Not so soon. _

The giant figure gave off a short, curt laugh and the scene shifted to the agonized, aghast faces of the people of Jump, and then her friends, who were all turned to stone as the wave of Trigon's power passed by them.

_No! _She said a little more forcefully and invoked her own powers to try to stop him, but to no avail. His advance was relentless, unstoppable. Raven gasped as she felt another pair of eyes open on her face.

_Foolish daughter. If you do not join me you shall be destroyed along with the rest of your precious humanity. If you continue to resist me you shall only make yourself suffer. You cannot stop me. _

_I can try. _She hissed back angrily, but then gave out a short cry as she saw the skin of her body turn a pale shade of red and her nails lengthen into claws.

_You poor, misguided fool. You realize it yourself, do you not? You are not welcome in the world of humans and you are not welcome in the world of demons either. There is nobody that will accept you but me, your father. Only with me can you find a place where you belong, as an aid to the conqueror of all mortal worlds. _

_You're wrong. I have friends-_

_Who do not understand you. _

Raven gritted her teeth, but suddenly found that they had turned into sharp fangs instead. She gasped again and fell backward, hearing only her father's cruel, unsympathetic laugh.

_You have no choice in the matter. You will always be my little girl, Raven. You will always have to do what I say. _

_No! _She screamed and suddenly her eyes opened.

She found herself on the bathroom floor - had she fainted? - and slowly tried to sit up, barely overcoming the dizziness that plagued her head. The bleeding on her arm had finally stopped but there was blood all over the floor and on her bare skin.

Muttering to herself, she crawled over to the shower and washed the crimson liquid off of her body.

Rain, pouring from the sky, a cascade of sparkling gems, purifying, cleansing, life washed away into rebirth. Peaceful, she felt, warm, flushed with ardent energy, steaming, boiling, sweltering, suddenly scorching...

She gasped as she felt the water burn her as if it were fire instead and quickly shut it off before the droplets actually became flame, the steam transforming into smoke. To no avail. A moment later, blood began spurting out of the shower head, drenching her in a rain of crimson, the smell of iron filling her head, nausea overcoming her. She quickly opened the shower door and staggered out, collapsing to the floor.

She stared at her trembling hands, breathing rapidly, body covered in a sheen of cold sweat.

_Damn it. _She pounded a fist on the ground. The only person - demon - who would even accept her was a violent tyrant who didn't even care about her. Was that really all she had to live for?

To live in torment, always alone, unable to handle her own depression, believing herself to be a monster, worthless no matter what she did. Friendless, an outcast wherever she went. The only thing she was good for was destruction. And causing other people pain. Only, she felt their pain as well and it reflected back on her tenfold. The more pain she caused, the more she felt.

It was strange, and sad that other peoples' happiness did not register with her. In the end it only came off in her mind as irritating, maybe because she was jealous of them, or maybe because as a part demon she was unable to process that feeling. Certainly the human part of her being should have been able to feel happy, or feel love, or just friendship, but she didn't. Maybe because she had been twisted so much by her cold upbringing where her mother had not helped protect her in anyway, where she had always been alone and even as a child, perceived as a threat and treated as such, not accepted anywhere - except by her father, but she didn't really want to consort with him, did she? - maybe that was why she had trouble feeling anything but anguish. So long had she perceived only the negative emotions of others toward her that she almost was unable to feel anything else.

Maybe her friends had helped her with that problem somewhat, but the reminder of the doomsday that _she _would cause was enough to offset that. Remind her that no matter what pretty words they said, in the end, they would also look at her as what she was, a demon only fit for destruction.

When their world crumbled before their eyes, their friends and loved ones turned to stone, everything torn apart, hell rising from fissures in the ground, they would surely turn on her and blame her for everything because she actually was to blame. And in truth it was _their _world and not hers because she was only an outcast. And her father would then turn them to stone too. And she would be unable to stop it.

She looked up - had she passed out again? - and saw that there actually had been no blood on her body, on her hands, only a figment of her imagination. Or maybe a figment of the reality that was to come.

She sat up and saw yet another jagged slash on her arm... _did I do that?... _bleeding slowly but surely; this one was not going to stop unless she did something about it. Not that she wanted to. Her life slowly flowing away before her eyes, but she merely stared at it, as if fascinated, a strange sense of euphoria in her mind.

And then she snapped out of it and stood up, almost falling down again from the dizziness, but managing to walk over to the medicine cabinet and grab one of the bandage rolls. She wrapped the white cloth around her wound and watched as it began turning red.

_Shouldn't I be dead? _

_I should have been dead a long time ago. My life has been useless, purposeless. I haven't made anyone happy, or anyone else's life better. I've only lived for myself, really, and it seems like living for myself means making myself miserable. Because I deserve it. _

_But I have friends - family!_

_Are they really?_

_They took me in when nobody else would-_

_A human need to find others like them. _

_They thought I was a freak like them._

_They didn't understand that I was much more monstrous than any of them. _

_They didn't understand me at all, not that I deserved to be understood. Beast Boy - I made him feel like a fool. Like a boy when really he was a man. I made him feel like a fool yet he still came to try to help me with my problems. And I shunned him. Surely he hates me now._

_Starfire - I made her feel unwelcome. An alien, literally, someone come from millions of light years away to help humans with their problems, and me, with my problems, and I shunned her as well. I made her feel like an outsider when really she was more human than I, or most humans for that matter. I was rude, cold, and a horrible friend._

_Cyborg. Half human, half robot, a demonic appearance, more so than mine, but still far more human than I am. I knew he felt like a freak, he knew I felt like a stranger. I tried to be nice to him because he tried to understand. I understood him very well. He never understood me. I was... disappointed. He didn't get that being half demon is what I am and that I could not completely suppress that side of me. Maybe because he was human and followed human standards. No killing. Depression and anger are bad. Being gloomy and moody all the time is not something people do. But it is what demons do. And he just couldn't handle it. _

_But they are my family._

_Were. I don't feel welcome any longer. I'm scared... of what they'll think when it actually happens. I know they already look at me suspiciously. And their act of "protecting" me is but an act of protecting themselves from being destroyed. I'm still dangerous to them. _

_How do I know they think that way?_

_They've proven to be wholly incapable of letting me be who I am. Starfire once was that I was complicated and that that was who I was. She obviously did not believe that because she proceeded to try to "decipher the Raven" and ended up only trying to get me to conform to what she believed was acceptable behavior. Going to the mall, being cheerful most of the time, letting other people inside my head. Cyborg and Beast Boy were the same. They just couldn't let me be different._

_And Robin?_

_Robin... _

She staggered out of the bathroom, not even bothering to throw on any clothes, and crawled over to her bed, but she did not have the energy to drag herself onto it.

_Robin... he tried to let me be who I was. He left me alone but he also supported me when I needed it. He recognized that I was a little different and let me be who I was. Maybe because he was a little more attuned to the darkness than must._

_But he is still human at heart. No killing. Obey the law. Strict and rigid in his beliefs. _He wouldn't be able to accept the demon part of her once he saw how destructive it was - not just moody or angry.

It all came down to that in the end. She wasn't human so they wouldn't be able to see her as one of them. And yet as a human, she needed some sort of social interaction, friendship, some form of connection with others like her - not that there were any. But the point was, demons didn't need that. The two conflicting sides of her being were tearing apart, and she knew it, only she could do nothing to stop it. No matter what she knew about herself, she couldn't control what she felt. Her emotions weren't so easily reasoned out.

A slash on her ribcage, right beneath the swell of her chest. No blood there. And another one and another. It stung but it felt right, like they should be there.

Maybe she could be called weak because she was trying to look for something to distract her from her pain. Well was that so wrong? All she wanted was for it to go away and cutting herself didn't even do that. It was just something that seemed natural to do when she was hurt. Which was, well, always.

She hated being hurt all the time. It had originally started as a slight burning in her chest, maybe a mild case of heartburn. She had clawed at it, tried to squeeze it out, but it hadn't left her. Over the years it had grown into something that had completely consumed her. She almost didn't feel real anymore. Maybe just an apparition that, when she really woke up, would go away. Except she was already awake. Going through the motions of life, dead inside already.

Dead dead dead. _Why can't I be dead already? It might stop the whole doomsday thing, it might not, but what does it matter? If I'm not there, my father can't use me to hurt anyone. If I'm not there, nobody has to find out who I really am and hate me. They might still call me their friend and cherish my memory. Not that I would care, I would be dead._

_It seems like a better alternative to living in hell. At least, it's hell to me. Then I can actually go to hell, if there is one, and be miserable for all eternity there, but that would be right since it's hell. _

She paced back and forth, running her fingers over all of the many cuts on her body.

_I've always wondered about that. Humans have their thing called God. Not just a god, but **the **God. They say that if you do not believe in **Him **or worship in **Him **then you will go to hell for all eternity to suffer agonizing torment for your sins. It seems weird. Plenty of people I know do not believe, mostly people from other worlds, yet they certainly don't deserve something like that. Starfire. Some of the people from the League. Hawkgirl. Superman. They worship their own gods, not the human God, but yet have proven to be more virtuous than the rest of humanity. And they will still burn. It seems unfair._

_Nothing is fair._

_You'd think that an all powerful, all knowing, all seeing God would be fair._

_Indeed he should. Maybe humans are simply misguided in their views about him. They have been known to make mistakes in thinking before. They are not always right in their beliefs. _

_And what about me?_

_What about me? I deserve to burn anyway. No use in talking about that. There is no salvation for demons. And besides, I'm in hell already. It wouldn't change anything. _

_It almost seems like a way to escape. Like running away._

_Is it so wrong to not want to suffer all my life just because I am who I am? If I'm going to be tortured, then I'd like to know that I'm in a place where that's supposed to happen. At least it would be normal. I wouldn't have to be different._

_Why think about the afterlife so much? If there even is one._

_If there is one, it would be no different from this life for me. If not, then maybe there will finally be some form of peace. And as to why I'm thinking about i? Because... _

Another slash, this time directly over her wrist, a gash deeper than any of her other ones. The knife dropped from her hand, blood all over its blade, and she followed it a moment later. Curled into a ball, cradling her wounded arm, watching her life spill out before her eyes. This time, she knew, she wouldn't wake up again.


End file.
